Chapter 3
Shauna stared at it for a long moment, disoriented, as if the numbers might rearrange themselves and grant her another hour of sleep. They didn’t.
She hadn’t really slept last night. Thanks to him, and thanks to her harshly spoken words to him. God, she was such an idiot. Once again, she’d let her anger get the better of her. She never should’ve said those cruel words to Akash. The memory of them made her wince even now.
In that moment, she’d been so exasperated with him for forcing her to talk about that night that she had lashed out in the easiest way possible. She’d chosen the one thing she knew would wound him, and she had said it without hesitation.
Because if he was hurt, he would stop asking questions.
If he was angry, he wouldn’t see how flustered she truly was about that night.
She didn’t want him to know how deeply it had affected her.
How deeply he had affected her. How sometimes, in the quietest moments, she still remembered the way he had touched her with an intensity that had felt almost reverent.
The way he’d held her as if nothing else existed. As if she had mattered.
Which she knew wasn’t true. She didn’t matter to him in the least. He’d made that clear years ago. Akash had hurt her once before, and for some inexplicable reason, he still had the power to hurt her again. That was what frightened her the most.
She grabbed a pillow and flung it over her face with a frustrated groan.
Hurting people wasn’t in her nature. She was a good person, yet this one man always brought out the worst in her.
Years ago, just when she had begun to believe they might become something more, he had started dating another woman, casting her aside as if she’d never mattered to him at all.
She had learned her lesson after that. She stayed away from him whenever she could, and whenever circumstances forced them into the same room, her words turned sharp and icy.
For a long time, they’d barely crossed paths. Then she joined Sehgal Media in London and discovered he worked there too. She’d hated that. Hated seeing him in her space, in a business she’d always hoped would one day belong to her.
From that point on, things between them had only deteriorated further.
Their relationship had settled into a familiar pattern, one that was sharp, distant, and cutting.
The hostility between them had rarely softened over the years, until that one night in Singapore, when the attraction between them had unexpectedly flared back to life.
After that, she had done her best to stay away from him, until last night and the ill-spoken words she’d thrown at him.
Pulling the pillow off her face, she turned onto her side, staring at the faint line of light slipping through the curtains.
She regretted what she’d said to him. She truly did.
It shouldn’t matter to her how he lived his life or whether his sister funded it.
It was no business of hers. She ought to have walked away from him instead of allowing her anger to get the better of her.
In the past, Akash had always given as good as he got from her.
But last night… the look on his face, that brief, unguarded flicker of hurt before anger had taken over, had followed her into the dark.
It had kept her awake for way too long. And when she had finally drifted off, sleep had been restless, broken by fragments of memory and regret.
She shouldn’t care what he thought or how he felt. She shouldn’t care how deeply her words had wounded him. But she did. And now, after hurting him the way she had, she was beginning to realize that, perhaps she’d never truly stopped caring.
Fuck, she was an idiot indeed.
With an exasperated breath, she tossed the covers aside and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Cool tile met her feet. She crossed to the window, pushing the curtains wider. The sky was already turning pale gold at the horizon, the sea stretching out in quiet promise.
Mornings by the beach were always beautiful and peaceful. Perhaps she ought to take a walk to clear her mind and to use the time to think through her upcoming meeting with her grandfather in Mumbai.
She quickly changed into a pair of plain white shorts and a simple gray tee. Opening the terrace doors, she headed toward the beach. The salty morning air wrapped around her instantly. The steady crash of the waves filled her ears, already easing the tight knot that had settled in her chest.
The private stretch of sand surrounding the beach resort was nearly empty. Just a few early walkers and joggers in the distance. She walked barefoot, letting the damp sand press between her toes.
A shriek of delighted laughter broke through the quiet. She turned and froze.
Akash stood near the shoreline, dressed in blue swimming trunks and a loose white linen shirt that fluttered lightly in the breeze.
His sleeves were rolled up, revealing strong forearms, and several buttons were undone, showing off the hard contours of his chest and the ink running down the base of his neck and shoulder.
Fuck. He looked good.
Keya’s four-year-old daughter, Kiana, was in a bright pink swimsuit, clinging to one of his arms. Little Kush, nearly three, hung from the other, his tiny legs wrapped around Akash’s side like a koala as Akash spun them in a wide circle.
“Faster, Akash,” Kiana squealed, her legs swinging in the air. “Faster.”
He laughed deeply and tightened his grip on them. “Hold on, monkeys.”
And then he spun them again, the three of them a blur of motion and sunlight against the sea. The children shrieked in pure delight. He only stopped when they begged him to go at it again.
“Uff, I’m tired,” he told Kush in mock seriousness. “Let’s take a break. Then we’ll go again, okay?”
“Okay.” Kiana wrapped her arms around his neck and planted a kiss on his cheek. Kush followed suit, smacking an equally enthusiastic kiss on the other side of his face.
Akash groaned. “I’m being attacked. Two tiny, scary monkeys are attacking me.”
The kids only giggled louder, clinging to him and smothering his cheeks with endless noisy kisses while he pretended to protest.
Shauna couldn’t help but smile. She’d heard from Raashi and Keya that Akash was wonderful with their kids, but she had never truly seen it for herself. This easy laughter. This unguarded warmth. There had been a time when she’d known this version of him.
She exhaled softly. But that had been years ago.
Their equation had changed drastically since then.
In recent years, she had only seen the controlled, composed, almost arrogant man who returned her barbs with fire of his own.
This light, teasing, sunlit version of him was a side he kept carefully hidden now.
Akash dropped down onto the sand, keeping Kush on his lap while Kiana wriggled away.
Pulling her back, he placed a little sun hat onto her head and brushed the sand off her hair while she babbled about building a sandcastle.
He was really good with them, and it was clear as day that he adored his sister’s kids.
Akash looked up. He saw her, and the smile on his face disappeared.
The warmth drained from his expression as if someone had flipped a switch.
His jaw tightened and his shoulders straightened.
Kush climbed higher onto his chest, shifting just enough to expose the side of Akash’s neck and shoulder to her gaze, giving her a clear view of the dark ink sweeping down his skin.
She now knew what it was. Sanskrit words she’d looked up after that night.
Aham Ahamsi Yodha. It meant: I am a warrior.
That night at the nightclub in Singapore, she’d wondered what the tattoo meant and why he had gotten it? Later, she’d traced the black script with her fingers… and with her mouth. She remembered the way he’d shuddered beneath her touch, the sounds he’d made when she’d kissed along the ink.
Heat shot through her. Absolutely not.
She was not thinking about that night again. Not now. Not with him just inches away, watching her like he could read every memory flickering through her mind.
She forced herself to meet his gaze.
Kiana looked up and spotted her standing a little distance away. Her entire face lit up.
“Aunty Shauna!” she squealed, wriggling out of Akash’s hold and sprinting toward her, her little feet kicking up sand. “Come play. We’re making a sandcastle.”
Before Shauna could react, Kiana grabbed her hand and dragged her to where Akash sat on the sand, Kush beside him, busily patting wet sand into a misshapen mound.
Shauna knelt in front of them. “Hi, Kush.”
The little boy looked up at her and gave her a tiny wave.
She held out her fist. “Fist bump?”
Smiling, he tapped his small fist against hers with solemn concentration.
She laughed softly. “Good job.”
She glanced at Akash. He didn’t even look up. He was focused on packing sand into a bucket, his jaw set, his movements precise.
Kiana handed Shauna a yellow spade, and then her little eyes moved between Akash and her.
“Akash?” Kiana called out.
“Hm?”
“Say hi to Aunty Shauna.”
Shauna’s eyes widened. In front of her, Akash stilled. Then he slowly turned his head toward Shauna.
Something unreadable flickered across his expression. Then his mouth curved faintly.
“Hi, Shauna. Good morning.” There was a slight pause before he added, “Sorry. I forgot my manners.”
Shauna met his gaze. “Good morning, Akash.”
Kiana grinned, then clapped her hands together. “Come on, faster. First we make the sandcastle, and then we play in the water.”
“And who’s going to eat breakfast?” Akash asked. “I promised your mom I’d feed you two monkeys breakfast and then wake her up.”
“No breakfast. Not hungry,” Kiana said. “Please, can we play in the water? Please?”
She flashed him a devastatingly cute grin and batted her eyelashes with exaggerated innocence. Shauna chuckled softly. This little girl knew exactly how to deploy her charm.